Pigs go camping

us71na · 09-05-2019, 08:37 PM

I was appalled this week by the mess some campers left behind as they left on Monday (Labor Day). It was almost a parade of campers leaving all morning long. This was at a State Park campground in Western New York near the PA border. As I walked my dog along the campground roads on Monday after noon and Tuesday morning, I saw more than 3 dozen campsites that I walked past with trash left either on the picnic table or in the fire rings. I even saw screw hooks in some trees with pop cans hanging from the hooks.

Then today when we started for home we stopped at the dump station and there were discarded rubber gloves everywhere. There was a small enclosure for a hose reel to wash out your sewer hose and the back was open. There was a pile of rubber gloves tossed in the enclosure that was nearly 6" deep and covered most of the floor. There was no trash can near by, mostly because there are a lot of black bears in the area, but come on, can't you toss your used gloves in the dumpster that is just 200 feet down the road on your way out of the campground.

We always walk around our campsites and pick up any non-natural stuff we can see and add it to our trash bag.

Parcany · 09-05-2019, 08:43 PM

It is called lazyness. I will do what I want and the h-ll with anybody else. I understand they have workcampers that are suposed to clean up but we always make sure that our campsite is cleaner when we leave than when we get there.

**JFlightRisk** · 09-05-2019, 10:04 PM

I'm sorry, and somewhat embarrassed you had that experience in our state. The state parks we frequent are better than that, by our experience at them. At one in particular, the grounds crews are at the just emptied sites within a few minutes, to clean out the fire ring or mow if needed. They would report a trashed site to the office immediately, and maybe those offenders are banned.

THE MEEKER · 09-06-2019, 06:35 AM

Sounds like you were at ASP. This is a very beautiful state park and is my favorite.

My Dad taught me at a very early age that you leave a campsite better than you found it. My kids were also taught this lesson as well.

Unfortunately, I see the camping pigs on just about every trip. Like you, I clean up after them when I can. When other campers see me do this, they will either chuckle and call me a sap or just maybe they will get the message. I am hoping it’s the latter.

namusmc65 · 09-06-2019, 06:42 AM

I am one of those that leaves the campsite cleaner than when we arrived. I was always taught that. Just good upbringing. Us older folks seems to have that better than some of our younger campers. just saying....

poohbear · 09-06-2019, 07:19 AM

Leave no trace you were ever there.
These same trashy people probably go back to a home just as bad as they left the park. It seems 3 day weekend holidays bring out the worst pigs. You will find this happening all year but these long holidays sends out a signal to those kind of folks, imho.

Screwby · 09-06-2019, 07:58 AM

These are the same people that toss their trash out the window as they drive down the road. They are the ones who leave fast food bags, diapers, dumped out ashtrays, and empty “Big Gulp” cups anywhere they damn well please especially parking lots. These people leave trash along the trails my daughter and I enjoy when hiking. Nothing says beautiful nature walk like discarded water bottles, beer cans and Cheeto bags in the bushes. I’ll never understand that mentality and have no desire to.

MikeUSNRet · 09-06-2019, 08:37 AM

The sad thing is, they are teaching their kids by example, that this behavior is perfectly acceptable.

Screwby · 09-06-2019, 09:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeUSNRet

The sad thing is, they are teaching their kids by example, that this behavior is perfectly acceptable.

Agreed, this is why it makes me proud when my 6 year old will tell an adult not to litter. You can see the shame on their face when the life lesson comes from a child.

Jagiven · 09-06-2019, 09:23 AM

Luckily, I have not seen too much trash left around our SPs. The common items I find during our visits is the wrappers for fruit snack gummies. Sometimes I find a lot of them, and yes, I do pick them up.

Over Labor Day we had an extended family behind us. I fully expected they would leave a mess. They did not. But OMG where they were annoying for 3 days. 5 adults and 4 kids (all boys), 3 of which appeared to be under 3. They had a small PU, and a medium sized tent. I could not believe that the put the 3 little kids by themselves into the tent. No adult, and no older kid. The only volume they could speak at was ultra-loud. They ALL spoke loudly all the time. They were louder than the MH across from us who was running his onboard generator. I like to fish and go on hikes, and we did a lot of each, just to get out of camp. Turned our AC fan on just for the white noise.

The bathroom house was 100 feet from the noisy family’s campsite. Mom would tell the kids to pee on a tree to water it, right behind our TT. Dad or Grampa would say at the same time, I am going to the bathroom, but would not take the kids. According to my DW, Mom took a couple kids to take a shower. They just spoke in their yelling voice the whole time that just reverberated to make it even louder. Once done with a shower, and left their stuff in the shower stall, to use the toilets, and comb hair, etc in the main area. So, no one else could use the showers. DW took their stuff out of the shower stall, so she could use it.

This was probably the first trip out in a long time I did not see any cigarette butts all over the place. I only saw one cigarette on the ground while out hiking, a brand new one, I suspect was accidently dropped.

As a scout leader, I have a great respect for the outdoors. I think camping is excellent for kids and families, but I also believe you need to be respectful of others, in sound, cleanliness, and light.

Camper_bob · 09-06-2019, 09:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeUSNRet

The sad thing is, they are teaching their kids by example, that this behavior is perfectly acceptable.

This is one of my biggest concerns too.

As a somewhat new father, I'm trying to teach my son as I was taught; leave it better than you found it. I constantly pick up trash as I'm walking around places. And he knows that if he even drops a tiny sliver of trash, he's to go find it and find two more to bring back.

I try to pick up as much of others' messes as I can, and certainly clean up after my self. But sometimes it's just too much. Latest example was at a state park we recently discovered our fire pit to be full of trash. All kinds of trash. Some burnt, some not. I started cleaning it up some, but we weren't going to have a fire, so I just did as much as my stomach could handle and had to leave the rest. I'm hoping the host had better tools than his hands to finish the clean-up job.

This level of disrespect is astounding to me. The fact that it continues to perpetuate is even more astounding. And it's not isolated to a certain age group either. I've seen slobs of ALL ages.

But on a more positive note, I have also seen people of ALL ages cleaning up too. I've seen "kids" in their 20s tenting out of their little econo-box car cleaning up around their site. And I've seen retirees walking their dog carrying a little bag and a skewer, not only to clean up after their fur-baby, but to pick up some other trash while they're at it.

It's unfortunate that it doesn't take very many slobs to do a lot of damage...

Ohiofinlander · 09-07-2019, 05:58 AM

Our standard practice when leaving a site is to pull out and stop just off the site. The kids patrol the site for anything left, and throw it away. They put the picnic table on the pad, so the grass can be mowed which is typically what the camphosts do. Hopefully building a good foundation in them.

Siamese · 09-07-2019, 08:23 AM

Maybe a campground slob will chime in and give us their side of the story.

Seann45 · 09-09-2019, 01:09 PM

Leave no trace

2OLDMONKEYS · 09-11-2019, 12:09 PM

So sad to hear that! My husband and I have always made it a point of leaving our camp better than we found it. It’s no wonder our oceans are filled with garbage! People ARE pigs.

2OLDMONKEYS · 09-11-2019, 12:12 PM

It really should be the camper’s responsibility to clean up after them selves, not the park hosts. Everyone should be responsible for themselves rather than walking away and leaving garbage/trash for someone else to clean up

DocBrown · 09-11-2019, 12:13 PM

Not much you can do about the dump station mess. But take down the site numbers and report them to the office. In WI state parks people who leave messes behind get put on a banned list and are not allowed to reserve or get a site for some period of time.

2OLDMONKEYS · 09-11-2019, 12:15 PM

Great idea DocBrown!

Av8tor · 09-11-2019, 12:43 PM

Everyone raise your right hand and repeat after me:

"I do hereby swear that I will take only pictures, and leave only footprints."

this is now required whenever you camp, anywhere.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program already in progress.

Quantum · 09-11-2019, 01:10 PM

This happens more often than not on the long weekends when "non-campers" come out to camp.

They don't seem to understand common courtesy, which can range from littering, to loud music, unacceptable behavior, ignoring quiet hours, speeding through the park, foul language.

We have started to avoid long weekends since it can be frustrating to deal with the non-camping folks.

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